ust
as global Filipinos alarmed by China’s massive reclamations in the West
Philippine Sea were preparing to hold their third annual Global Day of
Protest against China’s imperialism on July 24, a “preemptive counter
demonstration” was held on July 19 in front of the Philippine Embassy in
Washington DC by Filipino American militants protesting US imperialism
in the Philippines
LINK.

The demonstration was
sponsored by Bayan USA, “an alliance of anti-imperialist and progressive
Filipino organizations” which held its 5th National Congress on July
18-19, 2015, at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC,
following their “International People’s Tribunal on Crimes of the US-Aquino
Regime” which was held in the same venue.

Among the witnesses
from the Philippines who testified at the “Tribunal” were Philippine
Congress Representative Neri Colmenares of the Bayan Muna Party and
Suara Bangsamoro spokesperson Amirah Ladasan.

In the Balitang America
report on the group’s demonstration, Amira Ladasan is shown excoriating
US imperialism because “They want our land! They want our resources!
They want our energy!”

TIME WARP

Listening to her
anti-imperialist speech was like going through a time warp and being
transported back to the Manila demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s
when US military bases and US multinational corporations dominated the
political and economic life of the Philippines. But after the US
military bases were removed from the Philippines in 1991, US influence
in the Philippine declined.

Comedian Stephen
Colbert once said of Pres. George W, Bush: “He believes on Wednesday
what he believed on Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday.” What
happened on “Tuesday” was that China became an imperialist power and the
top foreign corporations exploiting the Philippines were no longer
American (LINK)
and the foreign navy that has recently invaded 7 Philippine shoals and
converted them into militarized man-made islands is also not American.
As for “energy”, guess which navy is poised to seize Recto Bank with the
15 billion barrels of oil and quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas
underneath it.

Ladasan should listen
to what one speaker at a protest rally in front of the Chinese Embassy
in Manila said: “China should stop its reclamation activities now
and instead just engage us in the international tribunal if indeed they
have the legal basis and evidence to do so. As it is China's
expansionist policy based on its 9-dash line theory is without legal,
historical and moral basis. Every Filipino should defend our territory
and exclusive economic zones and Pres. Aquino should fortify our
positions in the area to counter China’s aggressive acts.”

WHO SAID IT?

The speaker? It was not
Loida Nicolas-Lewis of US Pinoys for Good Governance (USPGG), not Roilo
Golez of the Movement & Alliance to Resist China Aggression (MARCHA) nor
was it Raffy Alunan of the West Philippine Sea Coalition (WPSC).

No, those words were
uttered by Bayan Muna’s own Neri Colmenares speaking at his group’s
April 15, 2015 rally in front of the China Embassy in Manila with
placards that said “No To China’s reclamation of Mischief Reef!”, “China
Out of Philippine Seas!” and “Assert Philippine Sovereignty!”

BAYAN secretary general
Renato Reyes added in another Bayan Muna press release that China’s land
reclamation activities in the disputed Spratly Islands were an act of
“robbery” and “an affront to our sovereignty.” He said: “Filipinos have
the patriotic duty to oppose these aggressive actions as well as to call
on our own government to defend our territorial integrity.”

As recently as July 23,
2015, Jose Ma. Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of
the Philippines, told Raissa Robles of the South China Morning Post that
“China is obviously being greedy, claiming 90 per cent of the South
China Sea.” Sison told Robles that China’s territorial claims were
“foolish” and “false” and added that “it would be like India claiming
the whole of the Indian Ocean or Mexico claiming all or most of the Gulf
of Mexico.”

So what happened to
Colmenares’ anti-China message when he arrived in the US in July to
speak to Bayan Muna’s US supporters?

THE DISCONNECT

Someone must have
informed Colmenares that the local Filipino-American leftists do not
oppose China’s imperialism. As early as May of 2012, when Balitang
America’s Henni Espinosa interviewed Rachel Redondiez, then the national
chair of Gabriela USA and former Secretary-General of Bayan USA, about
whether her Fil-Am groups would join the protest rallies against China,
she said no, because, she said, “it will only worsen the conflict
between China and the Philippines.”

In the TV interview
that was aired on Balitang America on May 9, 2012, Redondiez said “when
there is a conflict between siblings or friends, you usually want to
start talking one-on-one before you bring in other people or mediators.
China is not the true bully in this standoff. The China threat is being
used by the US to actually further trample on our national sovereignty.”

Rachel Redondiez was
not just speaking for herself. Earlier, on April 16, 2012, Bernadette
Ellorin, the Chairperson of Bayan USA, released the following statement:
“Contrary to Washington’s line, the Chinese government is not flexing
its military might to bully other countries in the region in order to
expand its economic interests....Decades of US military presence in the
Philippines in the name of peace-keeping and anti-terrorism have proven
that it is the US troops, not China, that are guilty of
pointing their own guns at Filipino civilians, raping Filipino women and
children..."

When I asked my
Facebook friend, Dante Simbulan, Jr., to explain the disconnect between
the varying positions on China of Bayan Muna in the Philippines and its
US supporters like Bayan USA, Anakbayan and Gabriela USA, he explained
that as far as the opinion of Fil-Am groups about China is concerned, it
was “their prerogative”. That explains it all then.

When China invades the
Ayungin Reef, Recto Bank and Pag-Asa Island and Filipinos all over the
world rise up in righteous anger against China, we know that there will
be at least one group of Filipino-Americans who will not join the
protests because it’s “their prerogative.” Published 7/25/2015

(Send comments to Rodel50@gmail.com or
mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San
Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.334.7800).

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